Help Thread: Quick Questions & Answers

[esperance]

Hello,

I am currently playing around with several hacking tools, settings and generally everything to get to know ROM hacking and prepare to start my own hack.
I had lots of trouble though with editing Pokemon data/Evolutions etc. but I finally found Pokemon Gen 3 Hacking Suite which works fine for me, with just one flaw.
The abilities are loaded as \x, meaning I cant find the right ones for the Pokemon.
My ROM is a german Firered and I used a copied ini file to get it to work with G3HS.
Any ideas on how to fix the ability names?

Regards

If you're saying that all the ability names are listed as "\x" then it sounds like the .ini is pointing to the wrong location for ability names. You need to make sure the .ini has the correct offset, and if it doesn't you should try and find the correct one so that it will list abilities correctly.

 

[EpicRoflcopter]

If you're saying that all the ability names are listed as "\x" then it sounds like the .ini is pointing to the wrong location for ability names. You need to make sure the .ini has the correct offset, and if it doesn't you should try and find the correct one so that it will list abilities correctly.

Thanks for the kind reply! I already searched the internet for the correct offset, couldnt find anything though :/
Any tips how I can find the correct one by myself?
Currently the ability stuff looks like this in the ini:
abilities = 0x8DDB24
numberofabilities = 0x4E
abiltiesnamelength = 0xD
Dunno if that helps :)

Thanks for helping me!

 

[esperance]

Thanks for the kind reply! I already searched the internet for the correct offset, couldnt find anything though :/
Any tips how I can find the correct one by myself?
Currently the ability stuff looks like this in the ini:
abilities = 0x8DDB24
numberofabilities = 0x4E
abiltiesnamelength = 0xD
Dunno if that helps :)

Thanks for helping me!

If you're familiar with editing text via hex editor, that's usually a good place to start. You can load up your ROM in the hex editor and search for an ability name, which will bring you to the list of abilities. From there it's a simple matter to find the name of the first ability in the list and set that as the offset in the .ini.

 

[Blah]

So I managed to open the firered.idb file. If I understand it well, knizz has documented most of the ROM but... are there any tutorials on how to hack using it? On FBI's ASM tutorials he mentions that using it is essencial to make bigger projects, but I haven't found anything on actually doing something using it.
I understand this must be a really noob question, but I'm used to pokered disassembly and this seems completely different.

Ah, the IDA with knizz's idb serves as a good reference tool. It's near as useful as commented code, but mainly it's just a database of the functions/data structures in FireRed given names based on functionality. When comparing to raw ASM code, it's easier to understand what's happening. Here are some keyboard shortcuts to make life easier:
x - Pulls up a list of x-references
alt + t - search, supports regular expressions
g - goto address. Include prefix
F5 - attempts to convert ASM to C, as close as possible (sometimes it comes out wrong)

In general, it just makes certain aspects of ASM hacking easier, for example finding things, debugging, and just viewing raw ASM. While I haven't exactly made any tutorials on the subject, I figure it's fairly easy to use once you get started.

 

[Substitute Doll]

anyone have a Ruby idb file?
thxs
just using it to port Andrea's DPPT icon hack

 

[EpicRoflcopter]

If you're familiar with editing text via hex editor, that's usually a good place to start. You can load up your ROM in the hex editor and search for an ability name, which will bring you to the list of abilities. From there it's a simple matter to find the name of the first ability in the list and set that as the offset in the .ini.

As I could not figure out how to search for an abilities name (tried with normal text, text in hex values, different character sets) I looked in the .ini files of the other programs I used and found the offset for ability names there. I put them in the .ini file of G3HS, still the \x stuff :/

 

[C me]

How do you add a Pokemon as seen in the Pokedex in Emerad? It's special 0x163 in FireRed but that doesn't work for Emerald.

 

[destinedjagold]

Can anyone point me to that tutorial wherein we can add custom scripts to an item? I've been looking for a while but I cannot seem to find it. Thanks~

 

[DizzyEgg]

How do you add a Pokemon as seen in the Pokedex in Emerad? It's special 0x163 in FireRed but that doesn't work for Emerald.

There probably isn't a special for that in Emerald. A simple callasm does the job anyway.

.text
.thumb
.thumb_func
.align 2

main:
    push {lr}
    ldr r0, var_8004
    ldrh r0, [r0]
    mov r1, #2 @you can change it to  0 - get if seen
                @                  1 - get if caught
                @                  2 - set seen
                @                  3 - set caught
    ldr r2, get_or_set_pokedex
    bl callviar2
    pop {pc}
    
callviar2:
    bx r2
    
.align 2
var_8004: .word 0x020375E0
get_or_set_pokedex: .word 0x080C0665

Set var 8004 to a national dex number of poke and then call this asm.

 

[C me]

There probably isn't a special for that in Emerald. A simple callasm does the job anyway.

.text
.thumb
.thumb_func
.align 2

main:
    push {lr}
    ldr r0, var_8004
    ldrh r0, [r0]
    mov r1, #2 @you can change it to  0 - get if seen
                @                  1 - get if caught
                @                  2 - set seen
                @                  3 - set caught
    ldr r2, get_or_set_pokedex
    bl callviar2
    pop {pc}
    
callviar2:
    bx r2
    
.align 2
var_8004: .word 0x020375E0
get_or_set_pokedex: .word 0x080C0665

Set var 8004 to a national dex number of poke and then call this asm.

This deserves a quick R&D post.

 

[DizzyEgg]

Can anyone point me to that tutorial wherein we can add custom scripts to an item? I've been looking for a while but I cannot seem to find it. Thanks~

https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=365500
This is for Emerald. :)

 

[NightwingJay]

Are set flags not allowed to be the same? Like I can never use setflag 0x1023 because another script can check it and see it has x1023? I think I am overthinking it .-.

 

[Blah]

Are set flags not allowed to be the same? Like I can never use setflag 0x1023 because another script can check it and see it has x1023? I think I am overthinking it .-.

Think of flags as just on/off switches. So whenever you're checking a flag, you're essentially saying, "is this switch on?". If you've turned the switch on somewhere else for an alternative purpose, then you can see how this check will not fullfill it's intended results.

But what if your game didn't use the default switch checks? You'd be free to reuse them as you'd like. So to answer your question, unless you're reusing game scripts or you're editing important flags checked by game code (i.e gym, pokedex enable flags ect.) then you are fine to re-purpose any flags you wish.

 

[NightwingJay]

Think of flags as just on/off switches. So whenever you're checking a flag, you're essentially saying, "is this switch on?". If you've turned the switch on somewhere else for an alternative purpose, then you can see how this check will not fullfill it's intended results.

But what if your game didn't use the default switch checks? You'd be free to reuse them as you'd like. So to answer your question, unless you're reusing game scripts or you're editing important flags checked by game code (i.e gym, pokedex enable flags ect.) then you are fine to re-purpose any flags you wish.

Okay so in my fire red game I just want to do it where multiple people reappear after moving into another room. (However before that you don't see them in that room, you see them in the beginning room.) I wouldn't have to worry right?

 

[Blah]

Okay so in my fire red game I just want to do it where multiple people reappear after moving into another room. (However before that you don't see them in that room, you see them in the beginning room.) I wouldn't have to worry right?

Yes. See https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=302347

 

[Gintoki-Sama]

Alright, everytime I try compiling a new script on a script I already made, it keeps reverting. Is there any way to fix this?

 

[Vendily]

Alright, everytime I try compiling a new script on a script I already made, it keeps reverting. Is there any way to fix this?

It's not reverting, there is no more space at the location you are inserting at. If you used the Dynamic offset feature XSE has, it won't overwrite the old script, it will find free space and insert the script there instead. You need to clear the old script before you can reinsert at the same location.

 

[Gintoki-Sama]

It's not reverting, there is no more space at the location you are inserting at. If you used the Dynamic offset feature XSE has, it won't overwrite the old script, it will find free space and insert the script there instead. You need to clear the old script before you can reinsert at the same location.

How do I go about erasing it?

 

[Vendily]

How do I go about erasing it?

Well, I personally use a hex editor to clear my scripts but apparently, you can use #removeall 0x(offset) to clear a script.

 

[Gintoki-Sama]

Well, I personally use a hex editor to clear my scripts but apparently, you can use #removeall 0x(offset) to clear a script.

#removeall 0x(offset)

inside the script you're trying to erase?